Answers To Questions People Never Ask
It is astounding to me, many times, the questions that people never ask or think about. Actually, my time as a missionary gave me a perspective on some things that the average person would not have. I would not have an understanding either without the unusual vantage point that third world missions has given me. There are a number of questions that most people never think about. This is true especially when it comes to fund raising practices by some organizations.
How do dirt-poor people have enough cash to buy groceries for other people?
There was a church in a dirt-poor area. This was a huge region of squatters. Homeless people in the US would have better places to sleep than the typical house in this area. Their houses were made of wood scraps, tarps, and corrugated tin if they could find some. One person in this area offered his “house” to use as a church building. There was a high percentage of the church that was men. The body of Christ worldwide is probably 80% women. That should have been the first red flag, a warning that something was wrong.
Very often, the report would go around the little church community that someone from the church was in need of food. The name of this whole settlement could have been called Need. The men of the church would get together and buy the suffering person or family a ton of groceries. Is not that what being the body of Christ means? To sacrifice and attend to the needs of other, especially others within the church? Very soon, the police had reason to intervene. They raided the “church” and arrested several men. The church was actually a drug trafficking center. No wonder there was an abundance of cash. Still, the church went on afterwards.
Several months or years later, some women came to the church building to pray. The custodian of the church, who also lived there, pulled a knife on them. He also produced a big roll of bills. Apparently, it was still a drug trafficking center.
Why the apparent success of literature ministries among people who cannot read?
I do not want to make you jaded against ministries who work among the poor. There is a great fund raising effort in producing the Bible in languages which do not currently have any portion of scripture in their heart language. I financially support these kinds of works. It is extremely important. Often, however, we will see an almost rabid hunger for books in the third world. Some of these people cannot read. Does anyone pause for a moment to ask, Why the apparent success of literature ministries among people who cannot read?
On my first visit to Mexico City, the pastor of the church that sent me loaded me up with multiple copies of a ministry magazine. When it was announced in a church in Mexico City that I had some copies of a magazine to give away, I was attacked by a mob of church goers that wanted to get a copy, or many copies if they could grab them. I thought, I have never seen such a hunger to read religious material. That may not be the reason for what we see sometimes.
Oh, no. You don't mean...
When there is a shortage of items in a grocery store or market, what is the number one item that is snatched up? If the end of the world were to come upon us we might want canned goods. We might grab bottled water. Bread and other basic items are some of the first things to disappear from the shelves. What is the undisputed number one thing that people buy in a frenzy? It is like a school of piranha attacking a wounded animal in the river. During the Covid epidemic of 2019-2022 what was the most important item missing from the stores first? What is the most important thing in our lives, according to some? Oh, no, You don't mean...
Toilet paper
Lack of toilet paper in third world countries explains part of the uncontrollable stampede toward paper things. A missionary I know visited a family that let their lot be used to hold services. He asked to use the facilities. They had an outhouse in one corner of their small lot. A water well was in the other corner. [Eating a meal at their place would almost always result in sickness later.] The missionary, in the outhouse, saw one of the Bibles he had given the family earlier. They were up to I Corinthians already and it was not used for personal devotions. It was at that moment he decided to not give Bibles away free any more. He realized he needed to charge a small nominal fee for any literature.
A striking exception to this was the country of Cuba. Their “successful” plunge into socialism has put the country into poverty. However, these people had a genuine hunger for books. They were intelligent, educated people. The lack of books in their country made them desperately eager to obtain almost any kind of literature. They would read them and pass them around to friends after they had read them.
I knew a man in Mexico that was totally insane. However, he was not dangerous as far as I knew. He was the uncle of some friends so I would regularly see him. Talking to him was impossible. Once he was talking to me about World War II and King Solomon in the same sentence. I would sometimes see him in the center of a large field waving his arms and yelling at “someone”. He sat through one of my meetings once. At the end I wanted to pray for him. He absolutely refused to let me minister to him. As I was leaving him, he said to me, “Cuidado con las arañas”. I walked through the woods toward my van, thinking about what he said. He was telling me to be careful with...something. I knew the word he used in Spanish but it would not come to my memory. Walking along the little trail in the woods, I was deep in thought. I should have known what he said to me but I could not remember the meaning of the word he used. Suddenly, in the dark I ran into what I thought was a volleyball net. It stopped me completely. Something was stretched across the trail like a trap. I was fighting against it, trying to get free. Instantly, I remembered the word: spiders. I totally freaked out, flailing my arms like a crazy man. I ran the rest of the way to my van, scared like a little girl. I do not know what the relation was between that crazy man and the giant spiders.
The story told me was that 30 years earlier the man was normal. He went into the outhouse one day and used some pages from Galatians or some other book. It was not to do his morning Bible reading. He came out of the outhouse insane and was that way until the day he died. An extremely sad story.
Does everyone in the world have an ungodly hidden agenda? Of course not, but if we never question little warning signs we can miss some important things. It is good to ask questions because then you get answers.
Dec. 19, 2023